Sewing Lessons
by thereluctantrose
Summary: Alex Watson never really knows how to explain his family to other people except as stitched together from a bag of brilliantly textured scraps.


He knows he's in trouble. _Oh god, of all the days to be in trouble._

If they'd not made it in time, he knows he'd be in much, much more, but turning up with five minutes to spare bleeding profusely from a largely superficial head wound wasn't what he'd intended when he'd nipped down to the Yard with the Detective earlier. Nor what he intended when he received a frantic text just as his fist made contact with a suspect who'd unwisely chosen flight over co-operation. Definitely not what he'd intended when he'd been detained by the over enthusiastic ambulance crew who suspected a concussion.

He is further waylaid by a grandmotherly midwife who grips his arm as he dashes through the L&D corridor.

"Oh no, dear, you're not walking in like that."

She leads him to the nearest washroom where he surveys the full extent of the damage.

"Oh hell," he breathes, drenching a paper towel under the tap to mop up the worst of the small, sanguine explosion on his forehead. Satisfied, he continues on his hurried path.

"I reckon you're in for it, my love. Don't take any of it personally," the midwife calls after him.

He finds the right room, takes a deep breath and pushes open the door.

He is greeted with a white knuckled shriek of, "WHERE THE BUGGERING FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN?!"

He tries not take it personally.

-O-

The Doctor is a man who likes to have a handle on every situation.

He remembers distinctly lying on the rough canvas of his bunk under foreign stars, trying to coax himself into a fitful sleep by imagining being back home after the tour. He wanted what he was supposed to want; what he thought he wanted, before the bullet. Before his madman. Before seeing the city from the back alleys at high speed. He had wanted the girl. The house. The family.

This soft, small thing now held in the crook of his arm wasn't anything like he'd expected.

His obstetrics rotation as a resident has prepared him for the mechanics of birth; the violence of it, but he's failed to take on board what just about everyone he'd met who'd been through the whole process had said regarding the "What Next?" that seems to descend in neon from on high afterwards.

For a man who likes to have a handle on every situation, the Doctor feels remarkably out of his depth.

The infant gives a sleepy snuffle in the tight confines of it's swaddling.

_Bloody hell, mate, what do we do now, you and I?_

"Excuse me, sir?" says a hushed voice from the door.

He tears his gaze away from his son's face to see a harassed night shift nurse who has poked her head into the soporific cocoon of the room.

"Sorry to disturb, only, there's a man who's just arrived in the waiting area, and he's making some of the other families...uncomfortable. We think he...belongs to you?"

The Doctor draws his free hand over his face.

"Tall? Long coat?"

The young woman is clearly nervous.

"Erm, yes. Something he said set off a small altercation…"

Jesus.

"Oh god, send him up here, will you, please? Before someone knocks his head in?"

He looks to the bed, where his wife is still insensible. The rush of tenderness he feels is tempered with the strong hope that she will remain in blissful unconsciousness, because he has no doubt that despite her current state of exhaustion, the Detective's presence might be enough to spur her to the manner of action currently being seen in the waiting room.

He hadn't expected him. Not here, not now. He had rather expected to introduce him to the baby back at Baker Street the same way you would with a dog; carefully. Involving soft words and lots of suspicious sniffing.

"Which vapid shibboleth shall we begin with?" comes the familiar voice from the doorway, "that he looks like you or that he's absolutely beautiful?" Despite his turn of phrase, there's a fondness in the Detective's tone that is unmistakable.

The Doctor gives a gentle huff of laughter.

"Unless I remind you of a tiny alien who's spent a bit too long in the bath, then neither, thanks."

His friend gracefully drops into the high backed chair next to him.

"What happened downstairs then?"

"Oh, THAT," the taller man sniffs, "I just pointed out to a waiting patron that his brother was obviously only present because he felt there was a possibility that the child was his."

"Christ. Only you could turn an L&D waiting room into Fight Club."

A comfortable silence washes over them punctuated by the sounds of the wards in the nighttime; a susurrus of voices, muted beeps from monitors and the far off, reedy cry of the newly born.

"Was she very angry?"

"She called me a rat-fucking bastard at one point, but to be fair, it was in the middle of an incredibly strong contraction."

They catch each other's gaze in the way they often do that can result in nothing but suppressed snorts of laughter. He breathes through his nose after a moment, desperately not wanted to wake either his wife or the baby.

"What's he to be called, then?

"Alexander. Alex. For my dad."

"Ugh. Predictable."

"Well, not everyone can be saddled with a Christian name like yours, mate."

The Detective slouches. "I was named for a 17th century dean of St. Paul's who wrote a treatise on death."

The strangely intimate confession causes the Doctor's thought processes to stumble. _Why did it never occur to me to ask the arse-named prat where that moniker of his came from?_

"William Sherlock. My father had a soft spot for the history of the Church of England. Not a religious man, by any means, but interested in chronicles of power. Sherlock wrote "A Practical Discourse Concerning Death" during one of several periods he spent out of favour with the crown."

"Sounds just up your alley."

The Detective snorts.

"I have no time for the study of theology. Utterly pointless. His writing, however, wasn't entirely without merit."

He fixes the bundle in his friend's arms with a peculiarly thoughtful expression.

"I know no other Preparation for Death, but living well: And thus we must every Day prepare for Death, and then we shall be well prepared when Death comes; that is, we shall be able to give a good Account of our Lives, and of the Improvement of our Talents; and he who can do this, is well prepared to die."

The Doctor feels as though the bright, warm thing that's been nestled in the center of his chest for the last few hours is about to burn directly through his skin and blind him. Without thinking, he reaches for the Detective's hand, rested on the chair's arm and grips it. His friend turns his palm face up and laces his long fingers through his. Neither of them are particularly demonstrative, but at this miraculous juncture, that fact doesn't seem relevant.

"Alexander Gabriel Holmes Watson. If that's alright."

The side of the Detectives mouth quirks.

"A little familiar."

"Surely you understand by now that you're family, you great git."

For once in his life, the Detective can't seem to find the words.

He learns early that if he wants to watch, the best way was to be **very** quiet.

It isn't anything like watching Mum play or Dad write.

He loves to lean into his mother at her bench, feeling the shift of her body as she bends a difficult composition to her will. It's like being on the ocean during a storm; rolling and pitching this way and that. He likes Rachmaninoff best; it feels like standing against a hurricane in a rowboat.

Dad thinks quietly and shallowly on the couch; his cogitations easily interrupted by insistent questions, but always patiently borne. It's easy to fall asleep leaning on him, but when he feels equally quiet, curling beneath his arm with a book listening to the steady tap of laptop keys, he thinks there are few places he would rather be.

Except for upstairs. Upstairs is the **best.**

He creeps up sometimes and steals into the much darker flat with all the stealth available to the very small and very nervous. The room even SMELLS threatening; like a concoction composed of all of the cleaning supplies under the sink he knows not to touch. He knows not to touch up here either. Especially up here.

Watching the Detective is like watching something dangerous close up that doesn't know you're there; or perhaps does and is prepared to tolerate your presence, so long as you don't make a nuisance of yourself.

Only the fluorescents above light the kitchen, giving the tall man ensconced by the microscope with the pipettes a funereal pallor. The boy's eyes don't leave him for a second until he is safely perched on the arm of the chair in the dark sitting room, close enough to observe, far enough away for the absorbed scientist to allow himself to forget he's being observed.

They don't speak. They rarely speak. He knows from his father that the man that they casually refer to as his "godfather" (although he'd never dare use this honorific to the man himself) often prefers silence to speech.

But he knows the Detective is not always quiet. He's witnessed fascinating one-sided conversations on the subject of cell decomposition, wild whoops of accomplishment and vile tirades of self loathing when the pieces of a particular puzzle refuse to snap together to form a cohesive picture. The Detective is a puzzle himself and the boy thinks he is utterly brilliant.

"Hand me that slide."

He nearly falls off the arm of the chair in surprise. The Detective doesn't take his eyes from the oculars, but extends a hand expectantly.

It takes a moment for the child to register that he's being addressed directly.

"Slide. Just there."

He moves warily into the pale light of the kitchen. The sliver of glass is just beyond the reach of the Detective's fingertips. He knows if he made a similar request of his mother for an object blatantly within his grasp, he'd have a "What did your last slave die of?" for his efforts, but this is the Detective.

He picks up the slight piece of glass between his trembling fingertips and places it with reverence into the outstretched palm.

It is accepted without thanks, but without rebuke either.

He returns to his perch in the sitting room, his heart thundering in his chest.

It feels like a catechism.

The year she turns 59, she finds herself on the beach at Temby, at sunrise.

She can't entirely remember how she came to be here, but it's peaceful, and the water lapping at her feet is uncharacteristically warm.

There's a boy, 11 or 12, just out of reach in the water. He bobs like a cork, beatific smile dimpling his cheeks. He is just as she remembers him from the mornings when they'd race from their Nan's semi-detached on the seafront down to the surf, feverishly searching for whatever treasures the shore had stolen from the deep in the night.

Her eyes crease at the corners as she returns his grin. _I'd almost forgotten_, she thinks, _Alex looks so like him_. She takes a few steps into the water, feeling the diminutive waves crest over her ankles.

"Mary."

The voice is commanding and deep, as it's always been.

She knows now.

She can feel him at her back. The boy in the waves gives her a patient smile.

"We'd come out here as soon as the sun was up to look for shells and driftwood. Glass, sometimes. Nan called us her "mudskippers".

"Mary, take my hand."

She wraps her arms around herself and turns to face the Detective.

"It's funny, even in August, the water was always bum-freezingly cold. We'd paddle out anyway, of course, but never for long,"

He regards her from the end of his arm, which is outstretched. Age has rounded some of his sharper points and greyed his dark hair at his temples, but the fierceness of his gaze is unabated.

"There's not a consensus as to what causes near death experiences. Research indicates it could be due to the release of steroids, epinephrine, and adrenaline resulting in a feeling of euphoria. It's also suggested that oxygen depravation triggers long-term memory recall, hence this rather twee little seaside fantasy."

She throws back her head and laughs.

"God, even in my own head, you're still very much you."

Unconsciously, she takes a step or two backwards. The water caresses the back of her calves.

"Don't!" The Detective stretches his long fingers toward her, his eyes widening in alarm.

"Ah. It's that kind of metaphor, is it?" she says softly. Her body feels light and free of the exhaustion that's plagued her for the in the last year or so since the diagnosis. "A nice one, as far as metaphors go."

"Metaphor be damned. Take my hand."

His eyes soften.

"For him. For John."

Her heart swells to think of her Doctor, ever vigilant. Fussing over her. Making sure every pill is taken at exactly the right time. He thinks she doesn't notice his fingers creep from his side of the bed in the night to find her wrist, tracing the shape of the now much blurred swallows and pausing to feel the thready pulse within. _Oh, my love, I am so sorry_. The water around her momentarily takes on the chill she remembers so vividly from childhood.

"That's you and I down to the ground, isn't it? The things we've done. Most things we do. For him."

The Detective's brows furrow.

"You collapsed in the entryway. I've broken approximately three of your ribs so far attempting cardio pulmonary resuscitation."

She feels a surge of affection for the impossible man so devoted to her husband that he's invaded her unconscious on this impossible errand. She takes two steps out of the water toward him, but just beyond his reach. If he can wrap his large hands around her, there is no force that will compel him towards release. He does not like to lose. He never has.

She wants to lay her hand on his cheek and tell him that it'll all be fine, but she doesn't.

"It's alright, pet. Let it be."

She's not sure how he feels about the endearment that she's used for him these many years. It's what she used to call Gabe, so the first time it fell out of her mouth when speaking to the Detective, it was a surprise to both of them. She wonders if, somewhere in the more human part of his magnificent brain, there is a place where he hordes little things like this- scraps of affection and sentiment that he uses as a hearth to warm his hands on cold nights.

"Please."

"Not an easy word for you."

"No."

"And as any child grows to realize, it doesn't always guarantee results. It only gets your foot in the door."

The realization that she's already made up her mind dawns on his face. It is something akin to despair, but she can't be sure. Twenty years, they've shared a space, a truce and a singular, essential man, but what he's feeling at any given moment is still only a best guess.

Behind her the boy gives a wild whoop, slaps his hand against the waves and sends a shower of spray that covers her in salt water. The laugh rises straight from her belly and she bends into the surf to return the splash.

"Don't make me go back without you. He won't forgive me."

There are tears in his eyes. Not the crocodile sort, which her Doctor has marvelled at his ability to turn on and off, but a genuine, glittering meniscus, threatening to spill down both of his cheeks.

The mother in her wants to wrap her arms around him. "There's nothing he won't forgive you. He made that obvious years ago."

He shudders and buries his face in his hands. He's not exactly grieving for her, she knows. It is for a loss of a comfortable order. The realization that he'll have to deal with the messy stuff of the heart; to put his arms around the heaving shoulders of her Doctor as he weeps and look into the eyes of her son when he arrives, grey-faced off the train from Uni.

She wishes, in this moment, that she could spare him that. But the pull of the warm current is too strong.

He straightens finally, with a look of resignation on his face.

"Be gentle with him. With Alex. With yourself. It's going to be alright."

She feels him watching her as she gives herself to the waves, diving into the embrace of the warm brine. She feels the weight of her age, the softness of her aging body melt away. As the boy's hand closes on hers, she is lithe and lean and he is there and oh, it is marvellous. Their salt slick children's bodies embrace in the swell.

She turns her face one last time to the beach, where the Detective's eyes are still on her. She waves joyfully.

He nods. A farewell.

She and her brother turn at last and surrender themselves to the sea.

Alex Watson never really knows how to explain his family to other people except as stitched together from a bag of brilliantly textured scraps.

The female forces, now departed, were woven of strong, coarse linen, flecked through with gold. His mother; the stabilizing force in the chaos of the home. Explainer of explosions in the night. Maker of peace and comforting beans on toast. Teller of dirty jokes that he didn't quite understand but that made his father cry with laughter. Cheerful sparring partner to the acerbic Detective.

There had once been the Landlady too, when he was small, who welcomed him home from school most days when the rest of the house was quiet and empty. Maker of tea and cakes. Wicked card cheat. Generous with hugs and affection. The benefactor who'd left the infinitely valuable building in central London to his family.

His father is wool and cotton. A solid, kindly presence with glasses perched on the end of his nose, wading through a new manuscript. Words didn't always come easy to him, but now they belong to a wide readership.

"Mostly people running to catch a plane," he says in a self-depreciating tone, "who mistake the cover for a Crighton or Grisham." He's modest; his medical thrillers are taut, well paced and much lauded for their startling twists and eccentric protagonist. The picture on the inside jacket is a silhouette taken in front of the window of 221b, the unmistakable profile of the Detective, bent over a page of notes in the lower right hand corner.

And then the Detective. Silk. Cashmere. At his worst, mohair. It's from of him that the Doctor's son learned to love the painfully slow track of research; the elimination of irrelevancies to arrive at a glorious conclusion. A few days after sharing the news with his father that he'd been accepted into the Wellcome Trust's Cancer Genome Project as a researcher, a nondescript package arrives at his flat in the company of a serious looking courier in a suit. Sitting alone on the settee, he carefully strips the wrapping to find within a book and a pair of white cotton gloves in a plastic pouch. Breathlessly pulling on the gloves, he gingerly lifts the book from its cradle only to have the realization of what he's holding in his hands cause him to nearly drop it.

_De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem by Andres Vesalius_. First Edition, 1543. Quartered vellum over mottled paper board. Practically one of the most important works in the history of medicine.

There's no note, no accompanying paperwork. Such a gift doesn't need an explanation. _Even someone as dull as you could see the intent, Alexander_.

His father's first novel had borne the inscription, "_For M and S; my noon, my midnight."_

He knows from his studies the importance of balance in chemical equations; the delicate equilibrium of atoms on both sides to form a stable compound, so this parity of spirit holds no mystery for him. His mother, the incandescent light that warmed his father and filled his quiet moments with joy. His godfather, the man who took his hand and showed him the places where dwelt monsters to be ended and lit the end of his nerves like roman candles.

He was afraid, after his mother died, that perhaps his father would get lost in those dark, first hours of the morning with his Detective, who's work in his later years keeps him shut more frequently in his rooms rather than prowling the streets of the city.

But it's obvious that his father has more of an inner light source than his son has ever given him credit for.

It is, of course, what the Detective finds so essential. Silk and cashmere are excellent for making a statement, but utterly useless for keeping warm. He throws the Doctor's temperate climes around his bones when he grows tired of the incessant, cold racket that is his own company.

The young man begins work Monday week. He appropriates Baker Street's ground floor flat after a fruitless effort to refuse the generous offer from his father of a rent-free living situation. He is only 30, and human, so he accepts. The smile on his father's face as they sit by the hearth in the basement flat, sharing a pint is proof enough to him that pride is overrated. Even the Detective, who sits perched like an aging monarch in the leather chair behind the great desk where his mother's Steinway used to sit, seems uncharacteristically pleased with the arrangements, despite the fact that his tenancy will require the relocation of a large chest freezer. ("Do I want to know what's in it?" he asks his father. "Not at all," is the answer.) He questions the young man about his research with a minimum of interruptions or pompous asides.

"You old berk," his father says amicably into his pint after one such interval.

The Detective hides a smile as he warms his gnarled fingers around his mug.

-O-

The melody is on the edge of his memory. But it only feels half finished.

He thinks now that the Landlady must have been half deaf or very, very patient to have lived under the man upstairs for so many years. The violin wailed desperately through the ancient vents of the house. _Maybe she just had a really good set of ear defenders_, he thinks.

He lies in bed, staring at the familiar but unfamiliar ceiling listening to the Detective play. The clear, high notes are a fraction shakier than they were in his youth, but they still coaxed from the instrument with the same, unwavering conviction.

"Been a while since I heard that."

He jolts upright to see his father silhouetted in doorway of his room. The older man raises his hand in supplication. "Sorry. I've just gotten used to pottering around at night. Sometimes I forget that most people like to stay horizontal for eight hours."

"S'okay," his son says, sitting up, "I wasn't asleep at any rate. Not likely with that." He points at the ceiling.

The mattress dips as the Doctor takes a seat beside him. They listen for a moment without speaking.

"You know it?"

"Yes," says the young man, "Well, no. Maybe. Does it have an accompaniment?"

The Doctor is lost, momentarily, in the melody.

"It's something your mother liked to play. If he was feeling magnanimous, he'd sometimes chuck in with the string part."

The memory was clearer now. The piano part was deep and resonating. The melody sounded high and lonely without it.

"It's funny, I don't think he ever particularly liked it, but he knew that she did. He did make little concessions now and again."

"To make up for things like the frozen pig foetus."

The Doctor chuckles. "I'd forgotten about the pig foetus."

Father and son grin at eachother in the darkness of the room.

"So," the young man says, "what does it mean?"

"That he's pleased to have you back."

-O-

Alex Watson never really knows how to explain his family to other people except to say that being wrapped in the patchwork that they've woven is to know the difference between noon and midnight. Between silk and wool. To understand the fragile chemical bonds that hold unstable compounds together.

It is all he ever needs to know.


End file.
